A holistic model of corporate governance: a new research framework

The purpose of this paper is to propose a new model of corporate governance that is holistic – incorporating internal and macro perspectives across legal, regulatory, sociological, ethical, human resource management, behavioural and corporate strategic frameworks. Researchers have signalled the need for “new theoretical perspectives and new models of governance” due to a dearth of research that is context‐driven, empirical, and encapsulating the full spectrum of reasons and actions contributing to corporate crises.

The approach consists of theory building by reviewing the literature and examining the gaps and limitations.

The proposed model is a distinctive contribution to theory and practice in three ways. First, it integrates the firm‐specific, micro factors with the country‐specific, macro factors to illustrate the holistic nature of corporate governance. Second, shareholders and stakeholders are shown to be only one component of the model. Third, it veers away from singular approaches, to dealing with corporate governance using a multi‐disciplinary perspective. The paper argues that such a holistic and integrated view is a necessity for understanding governance systems.

The challenge is to operationalize the model and test it empirically.

The model is instructive and of use for practitioners in attempting to understand, explain and develop governance models that are appropriate to their national and industry settings.

This paper argues that narrow‐based models are limited in their approach and in a sound and integrative review of the up‐to‐date literature contributes to theory‐building on corporate governance.